Crazy Thing (The Brighton Family #5)

Chapter 53

53

ZIGGY

N o more corporate job. No more plush mattress. No more strong arms pulling me close in the middle of the night.

No more Darius.

I’m back ‘home’ in the woods in Honey Hill, once again living my simple life.

Only, things don’t feel so simple anymore. I don’t find the same peace that I used to experience doing my usual routine. I don’t find any joy in my normal activities.

Loving and losing Darius Brighton again hurts in a way that meditation and yoga and herbal remedies just can’t fix.

Despite this funk I can’t crawl out of, I remain steadfast in my decision. I don’t care what he says. I don’t care how much he grovels. I refuse to take Darius back.

And to make matters even more frustrating, I’m torn between being proud of what he did and being hurt over how he did it. Aunt Rainbow and all of the towns folks are over the moon. As far as they’re concerned, Darius Brighton is a local hero. They love him .

But I’m so angry with Darius, and it makes me feel like a monster.

I haven’t been answering his calls. Not because I’m trying to be mean. More so because I’m so confused. I don’t know how to make sense of the thoughts I’m thinking.

So everyday, I wake up alone, go to work at my shop, come home to the woods, go to sleep alone, and then I repeat.

Look—I get it. He didn’t hide the truth about the waterfall deal to hurt me. He wasn’t trying to be deceitful when he omitted to tell me about the non-profit organization he set up. He was actually trying to do a good deed.

Trust me, I get it.

But that brief moment in the middle of the night when I thought Darius had potentially betrayed me again? That moment took me so low. It triggered me all the way to my soul. It was the lack of transparency for me.

Overhearing that conversation between Darius and that town inspector guy woke me up from the fantasyland I’d been living in.

It revived my mistrust and my deepest insecurities. It gave me the tiniest taste of how badly it would wreck me if he ever did betray me in the future. It made me realize that I’m too fragile to open myself up to that level of vulnerability.

Nah. I’d rather just go back to what I know. I’d rather go back to being alone.

Daphne calls me stubborn, but I say I’m tenacious. Because letting my guard down is what left me heartbroken over Darius all those years ago to begin with. I can’t compromise myself again. I’ve worked too hard to become the woman I am today and I happen to like that woman.

Even still, my trust in humanity feels broken yet again. All my insecurities are raging, and I feel out of touch with my inner self.I just need some time to nurse my wounds. Until I’m completely over him. Until I’ve moved on and put him behind me.

Today is Sunday. I’m trying to break out of my funk by doing something I normally enjoy. I’m outside on my yoga mat, trying my best to meditate. That’s when I hear an engine approaching.Which is strange. No one ever comes out here.I’m not exactly on a main road.

When my eyes drift down the path, I gasp. My heart starts beating faster.

It’s a fancy black sedan that I recognize all too well. Even covered in mud, I recognize Darius’s car.

However, the big caravan hitched to the back of his vehicle catches me by surprise. That I don’t recognize.

It looks like Darius found it abandoned in a junkyard somewhere and just hooked it up on the back of his car.Is that a busted window on the old camper? The hundred-thousand dollar sedan is covered in mud and scratches and dents.

There’s a decent dirt road with just a few potholes to get here. Did he get lost and go off-roading trying to get to me? And more importantly, why is Darius here in my woods?

What the hell is happening right now? Am I hallucinating?I’ll admit it—I was considering those mushrooms I saw growing out back, but I’m like, ninety percent sure I didn’t touch them. Okay, more like eighty-five. In any case, I’m truly questioning my reality right now.

I cringe at the loud clatter the vehicle makes as it approaches.I scamper out of the way and the old, rusted caravan comes to a halt right next to my bus. Then the car’s engine cuts out.

He staggers out of his banged-up car. He’s covered in sweat, his shoes are caked in mud, his shirt is untucked, and there’s a swollen mosquito bite on his forehead. He’s a hot mess.

Yet still, my heart hammers at the sight of him, and I realize, to my dismay, that I am one hundred thousand percent still crazy for this man. Shit.

I notice that he’s holding a bouquet of wildflowers. I can tell he picked the flowers himself, because most of them still have the roots and dirt dangling from the ends.

He reaches out, handing me the bouquet.I accept it, in a daze.

Darius doesn’t waste time with any pleasantries. He gets right to business. “Ziggy, I love you,” he says in that abrupt way of his. “I love you more than anything in this world, and I just want to be near you. Even if you want no part of me. I’ll wait as much time as it takes until you trust me fully. Because the last sixteen years have taught me that I will never be over you. So there’s no point in walking away from you now.”

I mash my lips together, struggling against the I-love-you-too stuck in my throat that’s making it impossible to breathe.

Darius gives his head a small shake. “It’s okay. You don’t have to talk to me if you don’t want to. Just know that I will be here, hoping that one day soon you’ll change your mind and give me another chance.”

With that, he turns and walks straight over to his sad little camper and climbs inside.

W-what?

When Darius said he’d be ‘here’, he meant it. Right here.

Ten feet from my bus.

Welp. So much for my plan to get over the man.